Much effort and many resources have been applied in the food industry to provide snack products that are both nutritious and convenient and will fulfill the organoleptic requirements of consumers as well as their desire to have a healthy diet. Many successes have been achieved in non-snack foods but nutritious snack foods have been more difficult to achieve. This may be partly due to the fact that oftentimes, it does not take a very large change in the formulation or the processing of food items to change their identity or characteristics and hence their acceptability to the consumer. Further, cereal grain based crisp snack foods such as chips are generally cooked at high temperatures which can adversely affect the nutritional value of the ingredients. The typical cooking process for crisp snack foods, particularly cereal grain based foods, is frying, which can result in a high level of fat intake for the consumer with its resulting nutritional problems. Further, in frying processes, sometimes it is difficult to control the amount of fat uptake into the products or keep the fat uptake at a low level while still providing a fully cooked and crisp product. For some consumers, high fat content in some foods is viewed as a negative and for some consumers it is viewed as part of a balanced diet. Examples of such snack food products are corn chips, potato chips and the like. In addition to the above discussed issues, these products are typically high in starch and low in protein. While such products have high organoleptic appeal to consumers, they also have drawbacks because of their low nutritional value and in many products, high levels of fat. Further, there is currently a belief that for weight control one should reduce carbohydrate intake and increase protein intake. High protein content products though have different organoleptic properties and appeal than carbohydrate based products.
Consumers vary in type and could be classed generally in three classes. The first class includes those who want a nutritious snack high in protein and low in fat. A second class includes those who want a balanced diet, balanced between protein, fat and carbohydrates. A third class includes those who want a diet very high protein content and a low carbohydrate diet but can contain even a relatively high amount of fat.
Alternative cooking methods have been provided for snack items, but do not have the same organoleptic appeal as fried products. Baked products have not met with the same success as their fried counterparts even with the drawbacks of the fried products. Further, typically, such foods have a high density and consumers tend to overeat such products since there visually appears to be very little product intake during the eating occasion. Very low density snack products have been provided such as popcorn and cheese curls to provide a large volume, low density snack. However, some of these products tend to be high in fat and/or low in protein content.
One problem encountered in making high protein items is the formation of fibers which is believed to be an interconnecting of protein molecules. The formation of fibers is very typical and is desirable. For example, textured vegetable protein is made fibrous to make meat analogues and the like. Such formation of fibers results in a chewy, tough product instead of a crisp and frangible food product as snack foods typically are.
Further, all proteins are not created equal for nutritional value. Currently, the United States Government is evaluating various proteins for their nutritional value in humans and their potential adverse effects on humans. For example, wheat gluten has been implicated in a condition called celiac sprue. Although gluten is nutritious, it can cause problems in some humans with their ability to digest and assimilate nutrients from foods. Further, the protein in peanuts has been implicated in severe (and sometimes fatal) allergic reactions in humans.
There is thus a need for an improved snack product having a high protein content which provides nutritional benefits to humans while using proteins that are generally healthy and safe and which finished product has good organoleptic properties particularly a reduced formation of protein fibers and has the ability to have a controlled fat content including low fat content.